Total Pageviews

Friday, January 2, 2015

Yesterday I happened to come across an updated post on www.msn.com
about the topic under discussion at the moment on this blog. I’m not a
regular reader of www.msn.com or for that
matter anything J.
However, since I came across this post would like to share this with you.

Point# 3

One point worth notable from the original post I had come
across on MSN is ‘all it required for that driver to compromise safety is mere deletion of a smartphone app’???

What fucking non-sense!!! On what basis this international
company called ‘Uber’

has been claiming to be safer alternative for women in
Indian cities like New Delhi. (Thank God ‘Uber’ is at least not claiming to be SAFEST alternative for women safety! So
appreciate its honesty. ;))

I thought of checking about this company on internet. First
thought came to my mind was of course to check for details on www.wikipedia.org.

‘Uber is the subject of ongoing protests from taxi drivers,
taxi companies and governments who believe that it is an illegal taxicab operation that engages in unfair business
practices and compromises passenger
safety. As of December 2014, protests have been staged in Germany,
India, Spain, France, and England, among other nations, while incidents
involving passengers have been documented. In December 2014, Uber was banned in
Spain, and two cities in India, and continues to be involved in dispute with
several governmental bodies, including those of the U.S. and Australia.’

I wonder why should Indian people trust so much on this
company? Simplest thing that driver could do was delete the smartphone app?
Could not company like ‘Uber’ build safety feature with every cab driver that
application could not be deleted by anyone but by authorised company personnel
after cab driver reports at nearest company office (to ensure there is no
passenger in the cab and all his next scheduled pick-ups have been cancelled by
informing respective passengers and rescheduling the same with other available
cab drivers) before he (any driver) could walk out of the network? However, with
such feature the next question comes to my mind is may be ‘Uber’ is struggling
to find cabs for its network? May be… may be not. And this easy join, easy exit
option may be one attractive feature to pull in more cab drivers as possible,
while both company and cab drivers are struggling to reach comfort zone before
they could trust each other for long term business relationship. May be… may be
not.

The old post says after the incident being reported ‘Uber’
company released the following statement:

“We became aware of
the incident this morning. Safety is Uber's highest priority and we take
situations like this very seriously. We are working with the police as they
investigate, and will assist them in any way we can to determine what happened.
It is also our policy to immediately suspend a driver's account following
allegations of a serious incident, which we have done. In India, we work with
licensed driver-partners to provide a safe transportation option, with layers
of safeguards such as driver and vehicle information, and ETA-sharing to ensure
there is accountability and traceability of all trips that occur on the Uber platform.”

I read this statement and could not help myself but smiled
ironically.

Uber says. “Safety is
Uber's highest priority and we take situations like this very seriously.” The question pops up in my mind is, ‘is India
the first country where this company has launched its operations?’ Uber has
been founded in March 2009 in The United States. Uber has been operating in many
countries, banned in Spain and has been in dispute in many countries for unfair
business practices and compromising passenger safety. (source Wikipedia article).

How seriously Uber
has taken such incidences so far to make its application more intelligent and
smart? One need not be so intelligent to make a smart guess on this one.

Next ‘Uber’ statement says: “We are working with the police as they investigate, and will assist
them in any way we can to determine what happened”

Most important thing ‘Uber’ has to understand here that, The Driver deleted smartphone
application!!!

Further ‘Uber’ statement says, “In India, we work with licensed driver-partners to provide a safe
transportation option, with layers of safeguards such as driver and vehicle
information, and ETA-sharing to ensure there is accountability and traceability
of all trips that occur on the Uber platform.”

Which layers of safeguards????? Today’s post on www.msn.com where Victim has spoken out further
on this: “And Uber, the taxi-hailing service that I had trusted, had employed a driver with a criminal
background, without a (Public Service Vehicle) badge. I later learnt that they
had also neglected a complaint by another female passenger, Nidhi Shah, about
driver Shiv Kumar Yadav’s conduct, and failed to take action.”

I wonder if Uber meant ‘layers of safeguards’ or ‘veils
ignoring safeguards'?

I think there should be general public protest against this
company by not opting for its cab network.

Not just in Delhi but anywhere in India wherever this
company has been operating at the moment. But then the next question is how
many other and better and more reliable options are available to the general
public?

Certainly, efforts of the Delhi Police are worth appreciable
while arresting criminal in time.

The next question is how strong case they would
be able to build and what course of action the existing Legal system takes/
decides to punish the criminal to discourage such incidences in future.